The Dragon & the Moose-Lion
by TwoOfSpades
Summary: A disgraced and defeated Azula tries to regain her sense of self in a world that has renounced her for her role in its destruction.
1. Recollections

**The Dragon & the Moose-Lion**

**Chapter 1: Recollections**

Her fall back into the world of the conscious was marked by a feeling of loss. Like the everyday sorrow of a sweet dream slinking away, this loss left in its wake only a faint idea of what, exactly, had gone. Her thoughts felt clogged, blurred around the edges by an invisible hand and filled with the peculiar not-blackness that lives behind closed eyelids. Memories danced with twirling, sickening steps through the mud.

_She was a child again, tormented by the beast of fever, the one fire which refused to obey. Tangled in blankets scented with sweat, she begged the blaze in her head to calm itself but was met with derision. The flaming beast curled up by the foot of her bed smiled its wide toothless smile as his flicking tail set the footboard alight. Delirious, the girl could only watch as the beast's destruction spread inward, reducing the mattress she lay on to ashes. As the flames reached up to the lick at the ceiling, they enveloped her and she woke, crying in the arms of her father._

Her forehead was cool, but the great bulk of recollection was in itself a nightmarish fever.

_"Fire," her father had repeated time and again, "exists only to take. It consumes as readily as the suckling babe, as carelessly as the starving man. In wielding it, we gifted few set ourselves apart. Every beast, even the largest moose-lion, must bow before the flames of a dragon." Back when he could grasp both her little feet in his wide cupped palms, he would rear up and flap his muscled arms to emphasize this point. His eyes would bug out as he let out a tremendous roar. When he had her trembling with laughter, he would take her small round face between his hands and smile. "We, my little fireflake, are like the dragon. We take that which is ours." _

_And take it he had, wrestling the throne from a grieving brother with nothing but the strength of his arms. Spreading his iron will through the palace halls until the air itself crackled with electricity._

Her lungs protested mightily and the young woman allowed them to loosen. Her breathing flowed evenly, in and out, the tidal wave which greets its sandy lover again and again only to part once more. Even fire must be regulated, must be controlled.

_And oh, how she had once controlled it! She had looped a leash round its boundless neck as her father watched with pride. Her childhood playmates shied away from the embers which had taken up residence in her eyes. She lived as an extension of her father's influence, a terror to her brother, to the servants, even to her mother. News of the war was upsetting to others, but she reveled in the tales of glory which arrived each day by messenger hawk. Each new conquest proved to her young mind that the world was a moose-lion lying in wait to submit to the draconian power of her father._

The girl pressed a slim hand to her forehead and opened amber eyes sore from a long rest. The walls around her were stone, carved to resemble the birds and beasts who paced in an unfamiliar forest. A barred window, framed by the branches of a stone tree, opened to let in the warmth of the sun. Heavy chains bound her wrists and ankles to the floor of what could only be a prison cell. As she tested her restraints, the girl trembled, crying out as a final memory careened its way into her field of vision.

_First there was only her. Then the Blue One had appeared and frozen the world. All was white and ice and shimmering. Her brother stood somewhere nearby, passive as the Blue One chained her frozen body and stole the breath from her lungs. For just a moment, all was still. She faced her blue foe and met determined eyes the color of the ocean. Then all was chaos as the Blue One banished the shimmering coldness and brought back the world. Her humiliation and rage filled the wide courtyard and she fought against the iron shackles until her wrists bled, spitting dragon's fire and curses to all those who had defied her._

The metallic bite of metal on her skin brought the girl back to the present screaming. Her restraints were loose, but the mere touch of iron sent chills into her empty belly and set her mind on fire. She had no thought but to free herself, and the pain caused by her singleminded struggles went unheeded in her panic. Streams of blood ran down the girl's bony arms as the Blue One danced in her head. The intricate stone carvings on the cell wall began to dance as well, flapping and crawling and padding their way inward towards her. The room shrunk around her, and the last thing the girl saw before collapsing was the glint of bronze in the eye of a stone moose-lion.


	2. The Eastern Air Temple

**The Dragon & the Moose-Lion**

**Chapter 2: The Eastern Air Temple**

Sometimes, Penh Haojin wondered if the birds were doing it on purpose. With each dawning day, he scrubbed the courtyards clear of their seedy excrement, and without fail they were dirty again by sundown. As much as their waste irked him, though, he'd formed an odd bonds with the birds, his only close companions at the temple. The compound had once belonged to the Air Nomads, who'd placed it at the top of some godforsaken mountain at the edge of nowhere, essentially guaranteeing any who lived there a shockingly lonely existence. Penh didn't have much family to speak of, but it had been four frustrating months since he'd so much as spoken to a woman. The precious few other temple guards weren't a talkative lot, so Penh mainly talked to birds. Nothing serious, just a sentence here and there, a good morning to a pretty parrot-mouse or swallow-fly. Once, he'd given one of them a good talking-to about the scat situation. It hadn't done a lot of good, but the yelling had been cathartic.

Occasionally, Penh asked himself how he'd ended up as nothing more than the janitorial master of bird shit. His move to the Temple had been advertised as a promotion, a step up from from his management position at the makeshift P.O.W. camp in the Earth kingdom lowlands. Sure, those prisoners had been lewd of speech and lewder of behavior, but he could always look forward to a drink at a good inn to finish off a day of work. The locals had been friendly and the sake ever flowing, until the war's conclusion had covered poor Pehn's desk with paperwork.

The Temple, in contrast, was a stark place. The Nomad stonework was unmatched, but the long war had left the place deserted. Only the most central courtyards and towers were inhabited these days, and even when all the guards and administrators had gathered in the dining hall, the spirits of the old Nomads filled the room up with a sucking emptiness. Watchfires burned cooler and even the summer months were chilly when surrounded by the looming reminders of the Fire Nation massacres. It had been newly-crowned Firelord Zuko's idea to turn the place into a prison, since the long dead Air Nomads really weren't doing much with the place. Penh chuckled. Prison indeed, with half a thousand empty rooms to house a single inmate. The exiled Princess had left one palace only to find herself confined in another equally extravagant one. It was a testament to the sheer size of the Temple that Penh had never set eyes on the girl in his months of service. Her cell capped the building's tallest spire, and her caretakers told tales of a mind cracked by defeat. He was told she could stare right through a man and see only the heavens outside her walls.

The morning cry from the watchtower brought Penh back to the grimy reality of cobblestones beneath his feet. A broom hung, forgotten, from his limp fingertips. He swung back into action, already bracing himself for the inevitable reprimand from Commander Liu for his idleness. When a youthful guard-in-training came to fetch him, Penh was unsurprised, and followed the boy without complaint. Liu was getting on in years, and in the thin mountain air his mind was foggier every day. A punishment inflicted one day would be forgotten about the next.

Penh was led down the delicately curved hall which linked the Temple's outer chambers to the inner sanctum. A massive set of doors to his right sealed off the most sacred places of worship, but the boy turned left, bringing Penh down a passage into Liu's quarters. Immediately, the clamoring noise of the room struck him as odd. The elderly commander had long since abandoned his sword for the more peaceful pursuit of Pai-Sho, and more often than not he could be found snoozing by his fireplace. Today though, he stood with the confidence of a younger man, engaged in conversation with a gaunt young woman. Every angle in her face jutted out sharply, and the maroon folds of her robes did little to disguise her bony arms and legs. The woman's words were impossible to hear over the din of people in military dress surrounding her. The poor old commander's steward trotted about on short legs, puffing with the effort of serving the soldiers, who Penh now noticed bore the distinctive insignia of Fire Nation royalty. It didn't take a scholar to figure out this audience had nothing to do with his failure to sweep the courtyard. It was at this point that Commander Liu noticed his visitor, and gestured for the confused guard to find a seat.

"If you would excuse us for a moment?" The woman's voice fit her perfectly, a drawling monotone vaguely reminiscent of the slow rains of early summer. Her men filed neatly into the hallway, leaving the room silent but for the crackle of flames in the fireplace.

The commander settled onto a cushion with a sigh, and cleared his throat with a phlegmy snort. "Announce yourself, guard."

Penh avoided the gaze of his superior's guest as he answered. "Haojin, sir. Penh Haojin, second watch guard and maintenance."

"Is this meant as some sort of joke, Commander?" The woman looked down her bony nose at the man before her. "You would assign a simple laborer to carry out the Firelord's orders? Perhaps this posting has made you soft."

"I did not mean to insult you, Miss, but your specifications have all been met. The man has proven himself in battle, and is well versed in detainment practices. Would a few extra guards please your ladyship? We are understaffed, but men enough to round out your company could be found."

"The Princess," hissed the thin woman, "Is mad. Unhinged. I was hoping you could supply nothing short of a battalion, but clearly I must do everything myself. Spare as many soldiers as you can." She turned to Penh. "You and whoever else your commander sees fit to surrender to his Lord will accompany myself and my men to Ba Sing Se, where we will surrender the Princess to the White Court to face the Avatar's justice. I expect your company to be prepared for departure tomorrow morning."

Penh stared at the woman, aghast as she gestured clearly for him to leave the room. Dazed, he rose from his seat and walked to the door, turning over his shoulder in the doorway to get a last glance at her oddly sharp features. "I... who are you?" he stammered.

"Ah yes." The young woman crossed her arms and smirked with authority. "I am the Lady Mai, Blade Dancer, Ambassador to the Eastern Lands, and consort to the Honorable Firelord Zuko."


	3. The Flood

**The Dragon & the Moose-Lion**

**Chapter 3: The Flood**

This boat was no better than her cell had been. The commandeered vessel was little more than a rotting wooden hull stuck together with seaweed, a merchant's ship long past its moneymaking days. Her own cabin had likely been some sort of cargo hold, its contents kept away from thieves behind thick iron bars. Azula had never been fond of water, and the gentle lurching of the waves left her dizzy. A great exhaustion had draped itself, lazy as a tiger, across her shoulders. Her few muddled attempts to firebend through the muck that remained of her mind left her fingers tingling, but did precious little else. She cackled, remembering the towering pillars of flame she had once summoned at will. Here she was, the great and terrible Princess Azula, and she couldn't have warmed a cup of tea. Princess Azula of Lukewarm Water. Her laughter went on and on, warping into choked sobs as the sun sank beneath the Eastern Sea.

Hearing the ship's whistle, Azula wiped snot and tears from her face, pulled her rough tunic close and scrambled back against the rough planks to await her jailor. The shrill whistle always heralded the arrival of a grossly fat soldier who left sweat stains on the ancient livery of her family. Some days the fog in her mind receded enough to reveal his sputtering, staggering weakness. On other days her eyes seemed to refract the light, transforming him into a tall and twisted shadow, a bull with bloody horns or a million searching eyeballs. Without her firebending, Azula could only wait, unmoving as the apparition stared her down and placed her evening bowl of rice before her.

Today, however, the figure who entered her cabin had the broad shoulders and thinning hair of a boy athlete in the business of gaining the soft belly of middle age. She was lucid enough to notice the failure of a rough commoner's beard to hide his anxious frown. She took a kind of perverse satisfaction in still being able to inspire some fear in the man, even if it was only by reputation. His armor was faded with wear, but recognizable as the deep green of the Earth Kingdom service. The bearded guard's nervous eyes flicked to her face, then her hands as he shoved her dinner through a slot in the bars.

"I'm to give you the Lady Mai's compliments, Princess." His voice quavered. "The ship's to be docking in a matter of hours, and from here on you'll be traveling by carriage. The Lady says to tell you not to, um, not to get any ideas."

She didn't reply, absorbed instead in the stripes of moonlight on the wall behind him. Each one was uniquely distorted by the twists and whorls of wood it lay upon. His own shadow blocked out the lowermost section of the widest stripe, leaving a small patch of wall black as midnight. The pale unblemished skin that linked her arched neck to a set of slim shoulders crawled as the darkness stole her gaze.

"I'd like to think my news is a tad more interesting than a wall, Princess." His tentative smile was unsettling. Most of Lady's men got one look at her hungry eyes and made hasty exits, no doubt to brag about their bravery in the face of the former Firelord. "I suppose I've no hope of getting through to you, Miss. Remember, we're docking in just a moment."

She brought her amber eyes around to bear on his grey ones. He looked away, but not before she saw the fear in his trembling pupils.

"I- I'll just be off now. M-Ma'am. Miss. I mean, uh, Princess."

She returned to her studious contemplation of the cabin wall as the bearded guard moved to exit. A sudden violent rocking motion threw her forward, and sent him tumbling back into the iron bars with a curse. As the guard scrabbled to regain his footing, the ship struck something with tremendous force, depositing him spread-eagled on the floor and tilting the cabin at an unnatural angle. The moonlit wall seemed suddenly to have become the ceiling, and the porthole had migrated to a new position beneath the waves. Azula scrambled towards the fallen man, searching in vain for the keys which would free her from her stomach-turning indignity of a prison. Azula's shoulder was dashed against the ceiling-turned-floor by a third scraping collision. Oddly, the sound of crunching bone affected her far more than the actual pain. The Princess grimaced and watched as a great twisted hunk of metal tore through the cabin's rotting planks and the grime-green coastal seawater flooded in. She curled into a ball, cradling her arm and rocking gently back and forth as her garments grew heavy with water.

The guard stirred, sputtering as the briny tide lapped at his face. In a moment, he was on his feet, running for the upper deck. It was Azula's wordless cry of anguish which brought him sprinting back, keys in hand. As the foamy water rose, bringing with it the smell of rotted fish and sweet sulfur, the bearded man freed the Princess from her cage. The tossing and turning of the ship had made her thoughts foggy once more, so she could do nothing as he dragged her limp body up an entirely sideways set of narrow wooden stairs. Grunting with effort, the man lifted her onto his shoulders and crawled through a small hatchway into a room knee-deep in seawater. The useless remains of a spindly ladder stood sentinel to their left, and a gaping crack in the hull had opened to the right. Without pausing, Azula's savior waded right.

A gloved hand clamped with surprising force over Azula's mouth as the guard leapt forward into the crushing spray. All was dark and light and dark once more. The Princess' lungs screamed for air as the bearded man swam through the emerald waters of the Eastern Sea with arms clamped tight around her. The last thing she remembered was watching the moon dance far below her on a tarnished hunk of metal. It glittered, a diamond made of steel.


	4. Our Lady Mai

**The Dragon & the Moose Lion**

**Chapter 4: Our Lady Mai**

Lady Mai was having an awful day. Lady Mai had had a lot of awful days recently, but this one topped the stack. It turned out, in the end, that rebuilding the world was a great deal less exciting than watching it collapse. Diplomacy was tiresome, state dinners yawn-inducing, and ceremonies just plain boring. And now here she was with a sunken ship, a lost Princess, and half her crew in critical condition. She was also soggy. Mai hated being soggy.

After escaping the wreckage of her commandeered slop-pile of a vessel, Mai had discovered that being Consort to the Firelord didn't get a girl far in the rural bits of the Earth Kingdom. The fisherman who ferried her crew to the mainland took one look at their sodden livery and demanded twice his regular fee. A local farmer pointed the party toward a ramshackle inn, where they were eyeballed meanly by patrons. Even the Earth Kingdom fighters she'd taken from Commander Liu got the full-on evil eye. You'd think her lover hadn't gone right ahead and saved all their asses half a year ago. Mai sighed and sank into a rough wooden chair in her tiny rented room. It smelled like soiled straw and cat piss. Damn these commoners and all of their ignorant ways. For that matter, damn Zuko and his silly heroics. If he'd just gone ahead and let the Avatar take the glory, maybe he wouldn't have to spend his every minute of his life in strategy meetings. She hadn't seen the man in a month, and it appeared he couldn't even summon the courtesy to send her a messenger hawk. Firelord, Shmirelord.

The captain of Mai's personal guard stood in the doorway, flanked by his personal cronies, one short and the other disgustingly obese. He was hiding his nervousness admirably, but Mai couldn't help noticing a slight tremor in his sword hand.

"Report, Captain Yu." She clenched her jaw, bracing for bad news. Even in her weakened state, Azula was a serious threat. Actually, knowing Azula, madness would just serve as an accessory to a predatory nature already out of control.

"The situation is unchanged, M'Lady. Base camp is operating satisfactorily, and search parties are being sent out at regular intervals. A request has been sent to the local magister for the establishment of a defensive perimeter, and we are confident in our ability to capture the Princess alive. The soldier unaccounted for is presumed-"

Mai leapt to her feet, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Excuse me? You think you're going to find our prisoner with search parties? The Princess is insane, not stupid. She'll get away, defensive perimeter or no defensive perimeter. You didn't happen to ever crack a history textbook in your time at the damn military academy, huh? She's the finest strategic mind to come out of the Fire Nation since her grandfather." The poor guardsman looked pale, and Mai lowered her voice slightly in sympathy. "Ba Sing Se? City of Walls, my ass. That was pretty much all her doing. Recall your men, and let's maybe think a little before sending them out again."

He left, apologizing profusely and leaving Mai alone with her thoughts. Her anger slowly dissipated and was replaced with guilt. The captain had made a call which would have been reasonable if the escapee had been anyone other than Princess Azula. His fault was no greater than her own in not intervening earlier. Her frustration with Zuko seemed to have its firm grip around her relations with everyone else, and it was making her decidedly testy. She knew her men had noticed, and she couldn't help but be ashamed by the way they tread gently around her to avoid a temper worn thin by loneliness.

Her personal issues were beside the point, Mai realized. The point was Azula, and she could fully throw herself into the solving of that problem. Zuko could keep his dryly diplomatic audiences and his crown. It was about time she faced a real challenge. Mai almost smiled as she retrieved the throwing knives strapped to her calves and hidden by billowing folds of maroon fabric. She stowed the weapons in her sleeve for easy access, along with an embellished Kyoshi fan. Suki had left it in Mai's care before returning to the Northern Water Tribe with Sokka. The redhead's eyes had been glistening with happy tears when she gave up the armor of a warrior for the loose tunics of a mother-to-be. She'd talked about raising her baby in a world without weapons, and Mai had appreciated the thought that went into the gift. The fan was a beautiful thing, all metal joints and deadly lacquered wooden spikes.

Leaving a quick note for the captain of her guard, the Lady Mai vaulted from her second-floor window, landing light as a bird and leaving the coastal inn behind in a matter of moments. She had missed the kiss of wind on her skin and the chilly bite of metal on her forearms. Faster and faster she ran, leaving behind the troubles and responsibilities that inexplicably remained in a world no longer at war.

All she had to do was find her old friend the Princess.

**a/n: I just wanted to say a quick hello to anyone who has taken the time to read this far. I'm pretty much a newcomer to the fanfic scene, and I'd love to hear what y'all think so far. Even if, for some reason, you're still reading even though you hate the story, tell me why! I love me some constructive criticism!**


	5. Blessed Rest

**The Dragon & the Moose Lion**

**Chapter 5: Blessed Rest**

Penh wasn't taking any chances. Even out cold, Princess Azula had a predatory look about her. It was something in the shape of her eyes, maybe, or in gleam on her flawless complexion. Folks with perfect skin always had something to hide. He tended to look for a couple good scars and some dirt under the fingernails before trusting a man with anything. The merchants out of Ba Sing Se with their fancy robes and polished bald pates would cheat you blind and smile afterwards with smiles shining like the moon on water. The seedy back-ally men who hid their wares in tattered jackets, on the other hand, could get you a hot meal and a pair of sandals for pocket change if they liked you. And most of them liked Penh.

The Princess was tied to one of the twisting, knotted trees that grew by the beach. He'd done it late the previous night, after dragging her dead weight out of the surf and onto the rounded pebbles that surrounded the Eastern Sea. Penh would have liked to make a fire, but all the driftwood he'd been able to find was sodden, unusable. So he'd sat by the Princess' tree as she slumbered, just a hair further than arms' length away. Sleep would have been a blessed relief from his vigil, but Penh kept himself awake as if just by being aware, he could summon the rest of his party. They should have come out searching by now, he thought as he watched the rising sun turn the horizon pink. Just one scout would be enough, a single man to report back and bring Lady Mai and her guards to handle Azula. He was a prison guard, for spirits' sake! The damn Princess had destroyed half his country and now he was expected to return her on a silver platter without a shred of help. This is what came of trying to prevent the war prisoner from drowning, apparently. He'd just been trying to preserve the Avatar's justice, and now look at him sitting two paces away from the most dangerous woman in the Fire Nation.

Penh reached down to his scabbard and remembered, once again, that he was unarmed. His standard-issue steel sword had managed to slip out at some point during his watery ordeal. So, alone and weaponless with a wanted woman. Also, his head ached.

Penh heaved himself into a standing position with a monumental effort, and staggered down to the water. Casting off gloves caked with salt and mud, he used cupped hands to wash his face with the frigid seawater. Streams of liquid ran unchecked down his cheeks and into his tangled beard. Waves lapped over the blunt metal toes of his uniform boots. It felt good to look out across the water for a moment and forget about the woman tied up behind him. In that moment, the delicate blush of dawn on the horizon and the swirling glint of sunlight on that water overshadowed whatever threat the banished Princess posed. What was she when compared with all the wideness of the world?

A hacking cough from the Princess brought Penh back to himself. She heaved, choking on seawater, gasping for breath. The girl thrashed against her bindings.

"Hey!" Penh shouted, running back to the tree "You'll only hurt yourself, fighting like that!" The girl didn't heed his warning, instead intensifying her struggle. "Look, Princess, I know how to tie a knot. My father was a fisherman, so you're not going to get out like that."

Penh stood for a moment, watching her. She may once have been a military genius, but prison, plus their little dip in the Eastern Sea, obviously hadn't been good to her. Her flesh had deflated, giving way to the sharp edges of her skeleton. Azula's hair was matted, clinging to her scalp in a grubby, curling mass. As she fought the ropes which bound her to the tree her lips moved frantically but no sound escaped them. Penh reached forward, grabbing her twitching hands in his own. At his touch, the Princess stiffened and seemed to shrink inward on herself. For a silent minute they were still as statues, him reaching forward and her pulling back, the universal picture of give-and-take played out by two bedraggled, salty souls on an insignificant Earth Kingdom Beach.

As Penh released her and backed away, her amber eyes met his, unblinking.

And then, rasping, she spoke.

"Water. There was lots of water."

Startled, Penh agreed. "Yeah, the ocean is right over there."

"No. The dark kind. The kind that makes my ears feel trapped."

Penh sat down on the pebbles across from her. "We were down pretty deep, huh? Funny, I remember you being unconscious for most of that."

"I don't like the water." Azula ran a twitchy hand through her hair.

It was funny, Penh thought, how utterly harmless this broken creature sounded. Like a petulant child forced to take a bath before bed. The way Lady Mai talked about her, she might as well have had six heads and the ability to spit poison.

"Don't like it, don't like it. No, not at all."

"Whatever you say, Princess."

Azula shook her head rapidly. "Don't, don't, don't like it. Because, wherever there's water, you know, there's her. The Blue One. And we can't have the Blue One getting in the way, no, no, she'll ruin everything." She clearly wasn't speaking to Penh anymore. She was looking out across the ocean with a gaze like a blank sheet of parchment, an unwritten message waiting for an author. "No, we don't like it. Don't. Come now, Blue, don't ruin my special day."

Unnerved by the monologue, Penh retreated into a nearby thicket and relieved himself. He could still hear the timbre of Azula's voice but her individual words had run together enough to be unrecognizable. For the hundredth time since he'd dragged her off the sinking ship, Penh considered his options. Somehow, the Princess had to be transported inland and north to Ba Sing Se, hopefully alongside Lady Mai and her soldiers. In the chaos of his escape, Penh hadn't seen which direction they'd gone, or even if the full complement had made their way off the boat. Perhaps if he headed towards the city, they would find him en route. He wondered if it wouldn't be easier to leave the addled Princess for dead and pretend she'd drowned. Hell, he knew men who'd fought in the war that would gladly toss her into the ocean themselves and laugh about it afterwards.

Peeking over his patch of foliage at the slumped form of the Princess, Penh couldn't help but be reminded of his baby sister when she'd been small enough to lift over his head. Soft and smooth and helpless. It wasn't a question of whether to protect her, it was a question of how. Leaving the Princess alone with her words and her thoughts, whatever they might be, he walked along the shore, keeping an eye out for some kind of path inland. Where there was a manmade trail, there was sure to be an inn for weary seafarers. Rounding a wide bend, he came upon a pebble-paved road which, upon further inspection, led to a small fishing village. A small boy leapt through the tall grass after his dog, giggling with excitement.

"Ho there! Boy!"

The scrawny, barefoot youth turned toward Penh. He squared his shoulders in a transparent attempt to project authority, and shrilly demanded the name and business of the visitor. "And if you don't tell me, Mister, why... I'll have to fetch Gran-gran and have you tossed right out on your bum." Penh wondered where the boy's parents were. It certainly wasn't the kid's job to police the village.

The boy's tiny white mutt trotted up to Penh and nosed at his palm. "Down, Uffy!" the boy shrieked, "Get off that man, I've not finished with him." Uffy did no such thing, and watching his antics the boy seemed to soften, abandoning his proud stance for a friendlier one. "Look, Mister, I just wanna know what you're doing here. Uffy seems to like you, so I can't kick you out or anything."

"Of course. I'm Corporal Haojin, traveling as part of the Lady Mai's complement. I'm transporting the, uh," Penh paused before he could make the mistake of revealing Azula's identity. The people of the Earth Kingdom provinces had, sensibly, been raised to revile the woman who had come so close to laying waste to their country. Some idealistic kid would take matters into his own hands for sure if Penh just carried the girl in to town as a prisoner. Maybe an idealistic mob with idealistic goddamn pitchforks. He'd seen his fair share of vigilante lynchings of minor Fire Nation officials at his prison post during the War. "Transporting my, uh, sister. She's a little funny in the head, a little slow. We just need to find an inn and get some sleep."

"Sure, Mister." The kid pointed him across the weedy village square to a thatched building dwarfed by large windows and a wide, rusting rain gutter.

Penh thanked the boy and hurried back to the beach, where he found the Princess rocking herself back and forth in time with the waves. As he untied her, he noticed the welts which ringed her wrists like twin bracelets. She stood without complaint, swaying slightly on thin calves. He couldn't smuggle her past a suspicious donkey-mouse in this sorry state. Cursing, Penh removed his woolen cloak and wrapping it around her shoulders. She was nothing more than a wraith drowning in folds of cloth, completely hidden under Penh's oversized hood.

He led her along the beach and up the road by the hand. She did not resist, but once or twice she would slow, distracted by a fluttering bug or a swiftly-moving shadow. Just before they reached the village, she stopped dead.

"Something wrong there, Princess?" Penh was already frustrated with her slow progress, this unexpected stop was just the cherry on the cream cake. "Move it!"

"Where are you taking me? Are we going to meet her?"

"Meet who, girl?"

"Her."

Penh sighed. "No, riddle queen, we are going to find a couple of damn beds so I can get some shuteye without worrying you'll wander off and set the whole country on fire. Now shut up and move along."

The Princess recoiled at his tone, once again beginning to murmur to herself: "Can't go and see her, oh no. She's a mean girl, Blue is." Her pale hands danced like lazy butterflies at her sides. "Get away, Blue, don't go and ruin everything all over again, don't go and mess about with my plans. Father will be very unhappy."

"Spirits, Princess, I'm taking you away from her if that's what makes you happy. We're running away from this Blue lady and I need you to to hurry your pampered ass up!" Slowly at first, and then with more vigor, the Princess did indeed hurry up, once again following Penh's lead in the direction of the inn.

There was no sign of the boy from before as Penh pulled his prisoner across the deserted village square. The emptiness of the place hit the two solitary walkers like a great wave from every silent crack and corner. A laundry line strung high about their heads waved a forlorn hello. The inn, too, was silent, an empty bar sagging behind a line of stools. A drooping man meditatively polished a glass with a filthy rag before replacing it in its rack. The few patrons slumped deep in their chairs, as if trying to sink straight into the woodwork. Penh shattered the silence by clearing his throat.

"I'm in need of a room for myself and my sister, innkeep, if you've one available."

Azula shifted nervously, and the bartender stared her down as he replied. "Always plenty of space, traveler, if the coin is right."

Penh paid hastily and was hurrying the shrouded Azula up a rickety set of stairs when the man shouted after him, "Is your sister all right there? She looks a little shaky on her feet." There was something uncomfortably probing in his tone.

"She's, um, fine. Just a long day of walking." Penh managed a weak laugh. "You know how fragile women are. She'll be right as rain after a night's rest." He gripped Azula's shoulder tight and muffled her squeak of pain with a gloved hand as he guided her towards the door left ajar at the hallway's end. The room was shabby, but scrubbed respectably clean. Its single window was entirely shrouded by a growth of leafy vines, letting in a beam of greenish light. By the fading afternoon light, Penh washed the Princess' face and hands in the basin by the bed. He wrapped her cuts and bruises in torn off strips of his under tunic before tending to his own wounds. He could see their reflections, side by side in the rippling contents of the basin. Prisoner and prison guard, Princess and commoner. She looked just as wild as his with her wide eyes and snarled shag of hair. Funny, he'd always imagined that a princess would have more of a regal smell. She stank of fish and salt and grime.

"We're going to have to do something about that rat-bat's nest, Missy."

Azula, lost in thought perhaps, stood still as Penh retrieved the slim dagger hidden in his boot and took a handful of her hair in his calloused palm. The strands broke easily under his blade, sending tufts of inky-black hair tumbling to the floor.

When she spoke her voice wavered. "I did this once. Cut it off."

"That so?"

"So. The girl wasn't getting it right, so I sent her away."

"You've got a girl just to cut your hair?"

Amber eyes turned for the third time on Penh's face. "Not anymore." And just like that, she was gone again, leaving nothing but a blank stare and an empty body.

Penh finished up, and admired the uneven lines of his handiwork. The stark angles of Azula's face and neck stood out almost beautifully without her swirling mess of hair. The great destroyer of armies, the Fire Princess, stood before him with what could only be described as a giant cowlick. Penh stifled a guffaw at the ridiculousness of it all.

He picked up the frail girl and laid her down on the inn's bed. She might as well have been asleep already, for all the mental activity she was displaying. Grabbing his discarded cloak, Penh made himself a place on the rough floorboards and settled down to sleep. The last thing he heard was the gentle snores of the Princess over the chatter of afternoon birds outside their window.


End file.
